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Early Childhood Education
Organization : Pratham Education Foundation
Location : Pan India
Project Description
Early Childhood is a period where brain development is at its peak. Fostering appropriate developmental abilities of children at this crucial stage has been closely associated with improved outcomes, such as better preparedness for school, enhanced retention and all round development of the child.
Pratham’s work in Early Childhood Education began over 25 years ago with community-based preschool centres in Mumbai, which were run by local young women. Over the years, the program has evolved to include multiple delivery models to suit the dynamic contexts and needs of different geographies across India. The focus of Pratham’s Early Childhood Education program is holistic development of children and their readiness for school in the age group of 3-8 years. This is done with the support of mothers, school teachers and volunteers in the community.
Holistic development and school readiness include four large developmental domains:
Physical Development
- Develop fine and gross motor skills, along with pre-writing abilities and ensure appropriate growth and health
Socio-Emotional Development
- Learn to adapt to new settings & people, work in groups, individual, interaction & interpersonal skills
Cognitive Development
- Develop basic problem-solving abilities, along with knowledge of colours, shape, symbols etc that are essential for pre-math
Language Development
- Develop basic vocabulary and improve the ability to express ideas confidently, both individually and in groups
Some distinguishing elements of Pratham’s approach towards Early Childhood Education are: local resources, contextual content and low-cost material, regular assessments and engaging mothers
This instructor or teacher is a local community member, who has a strong understanding of the local context, which helps her effectively interact with children and engage with parents.
The content is based on the child’s immediate surroundings. Activities are conducted with children in varying setups – big groups, small groups and individually – and are supported with contextualized print and play material such as flash cards, story books, story cards, picture cards, beads, clay and locally available objects of daily use.
Children are regularly assessed by instructors through simple activities and observations. Indicators for assessment are such that they are easy to observe, measure and communicate. The findings of these periodic assessments help instructors track children’s progress and are regularly communicated to parents as an engagement tool.
Mothers are also engaged through periodic meetings, creation of mothers’ groups in the community and individual home visits. Mother engagement includes discussions, games and material creation and distribution.
Project Type : Donor funded
Special Features of Project
Pratham’s ECE program is implemented in the following ways:
DIRECT APPROACH:
Anganwadi Support: This involves mobilization of community volunteers to provide daily instructional activities to children in anganwadis, form and work with mothers’ groups and conduct community events. Pratham provides training and on-site monitoring support to volunteers. Pratham’s anganwadi support model follows a ‘teaching in, reaching out’ approach where efforts are made to engage children both within the institution (i.e. anganwadis) as well as outside it – at home and in the community.
Pratham partners with ICDS and provides support to anganwadi workers across the block. Pratham provides content, material, and demonstrates appropriate teaching practices and supports anganwadi workers in carrying out learning activities with children.
Outside the anganwadi, Pratham engages mothers in the community and encourages them to participate in their child’s learning process. This is done by forming mothers’ groups in every community and facilitating regular meetings where Pratham staff and community volunteers demonstrate learning activities for them to conduct with their children at home and discuss any issues related to their children’s education.
Pratham also conducts school readiness melas in every community before the start of each school year for children about to enter grade 1. This mela encourages a mother and child to come together to participate in the learning focused activities.
See school readiness melas in action in Rajasthan and Assam.
GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP APPROACH:
In formal government partnerships, Pratham partners with the state/district-level government to strengthen existing government infrastructure and resources for the quality provision of Early Childhood Education, either in Anganwadi centres or in pre-primary classes and early grades within government schools. Pratham and the government jointly work towards the development of the program, including designing curriculum and material, training government personnel and supporting other key elements such as on-site monitoring and mentoring, measurement and assessment and periodic reviews. Pratham views these government partnerships as a key pathway to achieving systemic change.
